Adventures in DIY: Wedding Vow Gallery Wrapped Photo

I saw the coolest thing on Pinterest. The Etsy store, Geezee'sCustomCanvas takes photos, adds words (like your wedding vows, or the lyrics to your first dance) and prints it out onto a gallery wrapped canvas. I thought it was so cool. I wanted one. But I wanted to make it myself. :) To start the project, I found a Groupon for a great discount on a gallery wrapped photo from Picture It On Canvas. (Costco often has photo center coupons for the same service.)

Being cheap, and having a husband that loves open source software, I decided to use the free software GIMP. Photoshop would work awesomely, too, but like I said... I am cheap.

I started out by choosing the photo I wanted to add words to, and importing it into GIMP making sure to use a layout equivalent to the size of gallery wrapped photo I was going to buy. Of course, I had to pick a smoochy picture.

My husband I decided that we wanted the quote to be short and sweet, so we decided to use our wedding vows. Being extra-nerdy, I also wanted to use the fonts we chose for the wedding invitations, programs and thank you cards. I added a text box with our vows written in the more basic sans-serif font (Futura Light). I deleted a few words I wanted to emphasize and replaced the characters with spaces.

After making sure I had plenty of room for the emphasized words, I used our more fancy serif font (Citadel Script) to add our keywords of love, joy, grow and life. Each word was a different text box, in a different layer. I carefully placed each word.

Once I was happy with the placement of the words, I simply cropped it to the desired size, flattened the image and uploaded it to Picture It On Canvas. There, I had the photo gallery wrapped using a special edging that just stretched out the sides, as I used a photo that didn't leave extra room around the edges. It worked perfectly. Less than a week later my new gallery wrapped photo was happily hanging in the center of my gallery wall! 

Adventures in Getting Married: Handmade Wedding Quilts

Aaron's mom, Kathy Grove, has been quilting for years. Recently she sent us the quilt Aaron used as a boy, which has some really adorable large stitches that he made all by himself.

Not long after Aaron proposed, Kathy offer to make him and me a wedding quilt -- a wedding lap quilt for us  to relax under. What a tremendous gift!

When we were visiting in Iowa over the summer, she and I pored over several quilting design books. She told me all about the different designs she has used and wonderful stories that accompany these designs. In the end, we chose a beautiful block pattern called Maltese Cross, which we saw in a book by Judy Martin. I loved the design pattern because it looked like circles (sort of like a traditional wedding quilt,) but was made out of a variety of non-circular shapes!  We looked through a variety of fabrics, and I got to pick out my favorites.

After a very busy summer, and a fabulous wedding, a very large package arrived in the mail from Iowa. Inside the package was not one, but two (TWO!) beautiful lap quilts. I have no idea what kind of magic she used to accomplish two quilts -- but it was a remarkably fabulous surprise!

Here are the labels attached to each:

 Making the quilts even more special, Kathy used scraps of material with a loving significance. In the pink quilt, Kathy used a fabulous pink-and-checkerboard fabric which had been left over from an apron she had made in  her junior high home economics class. The blue quilt featured a blue sky fabric, the same fabric which had been used in Aaron's college log cabin quilt.

Here are a few more photos, though these pictures certainly do not do them justice.

Adventures in Getting Married: The Perry House

Aaron and I were truly lucky to have found and booked The Perry House.

The venue is fantastic with breathtaking views of the Monterey harbor and historic charm. The old historic building has been remodeled and refurbished to perfectly blend modern amenities with the classic style of the home. The grounds alone are fabulous -- you add a little wedding flair and it's borderline magical.

Classic Catering, a division of Events by Classic who also owns the Perry House, served our food as a part of our wedding event package. I must tell you that I have never been served such a delicious wedding meal (and no I am not just saying that because it was my wedding!) Seriously, I would love to get my hands on a few of those recipes! Many of our wedding guests are still talking about how delectable each dish was -- and they absolutely loved the 'Roaming Reception' plan that was suggested by the staff that 

allowed for guests to walk around, talking to anyone and everyone, while each guest was able to enjoy his meal at his own leisure. 

I seriously could go on and on about all of the things that I think are fabulous about the Perry House and its staff.... but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a several more photos, compliments of photographer-extraordinaire Erik Miguel. 

Adventures in Getting' Married: Flower Power

On September 3, 2011 I was able to have the wedding of my dreams. My dream was fulfilled, in part, because of the work of Melody King of Fleurish Floral Design.

I was one of those brides that was going to use DIY flowers to try and save money. On a whim, I called Melody at Fleurish just to get a quote, and it was one of the best wedding decisions I made! Melody's arrangements were not only budget-friendly, but they are absolutely beautiful. She is extremely friendly and very professional. She has wonderfully innovative ideas. Melody not only helped to make my flower dreams come true, but also provided creative ideas to go above and beyond anything I could have imagined. The flowers were beautiful on my wedding day -- and my mom enjoyed their beauty for a week following!

Our photographer, Erik Miguel,was able to take some remarkable photos of the flowers at the wedding.